Field of the Application
The application relates generally to mobile positioning techniques, and more particularly, to apparatuses and methods for identifying mobile Access Points (APs) in mobile positioning systems.
Description of the Related Art
With with rapid development of mobile device and mobile application industries, there has been a growing demand for users to continuously and accurately know the geographic location of their mobile devices. For example, mobile devices attached to pets, children, or the elderly allow their loved ones to keep track of them via mobile positioning techniques. Two ways to estimate the geographic location of a mobile device are using a wireless positioning network, such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) or a cell tower system, or using a database of wireless beacons and determining position using this database.
With the first technique, continuously obtaining signals from a satellite network or cellular network may be difficult for the mobile device. Such difficulties commonly arise in enclosed, confined areas, such as tunnels, or areas with a large concentration of tall buildings.
With the second technique, the creation of a database of wireless beacons is required, so that a mobile device may infer its location by reference to the detected wireless beacons, e.g., Wi-Fi beacons, which are already recorded in the database. However, the accuracy of the location inference may drop greatly when the detected beacon is a mobile beacon, i.e., the location of the beacon may vary and may not be the same as the location stored in the database. That is, the location inferred by reference to such beacons will be erroneous. Therefore, it is desirable to remove mobile beacons from the database used by mobile devices for location inference.